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New season announced at Bush Theatre for 2018

Madani Younis has announced the season for the coming year at the Bush Theatre, which will include 2 new commissions and 3 world premieres.

The season opens in January with The Believers Are But Brothers, a piece written and performed by Javaad Alipoor. The piece is examines men and masculinity in the 21st century, against the backdrop of meme culture, the alt-right and ISIS. This one man show is co-directed by Alipoor and Kirsty Housely, and runs from 24th January to 10th February.

Monica Dolan’s The B*easts will run in London after premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. The show, which is directed by John Hoggarth, looks at the ‘pornification’ of our culture, and sexualisation of children. Dolan is known for appearing in W1A and Witness for the Prosecution on television. The play will run at the theatre from 12th February to 3rd March.

Arinzé Kene’s play Misty will get its world premiere in March. Kent’s credits include Girl from the North Country at the Old Vic and One Night in Miami at the Donmar Warehouse, and he will perform his new play, directed by Omar Elerian, which will also have an original score performed live on stage. Misty is described as a ‘lyrical journey through the pulsating heart and dark soul of inner city London’, and fuses gig theatre, spoken word, live art and direct address. It runs from 15th March to 21st April.

Younis will direct Winsome Pinnock’s play Leave Taking in May. The piece is about a single mother who has traveled to England to make a better life for her family. Enid, along with hr two children, look for a way to ‘feel rooted to a land where they’re invisible’. It will run from 24th May to 30th June.

Vinery Patel’s An Adventure gets its world premiere in September. The piece is inspired by Patel’s grandparents’ journey to get to Britain, and follows Jyoti and Rasik as they embark on journey from post-Partition India to London. It will run 6th September to 20th October.

The world premiere of Ben Weatherill’s play Jellyfish will run from 26th June. Directed by Tim Hoare, it follows mother Agnes and daughter Kelly from Skegness, and looks at the struggles of a mother coming to terms with the needs of a maturing daughter with Down’s Syndrome.

Going Through, a play by Estelle Savasta, will be performed in the UK for the first time in October. Savasta runs French bi-lingual theatre company Hippolyte a mal au cœur, and her second play is about a deaf girl who is taken away from the woman she has lived with for as long as she can remember. Omar Elerian’s production will mix spoken English and British Sign Language when it runs from 3rd October to 3rd November.

The last production in the programme is Lands by Antler. Created by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart with Sophie Steer and Leah Brotherhead, the piece is about a relationship on the brink, and how a couple’s inability to understand each other affects them. It runs in London, following a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, from 13th November to 8th December.

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